Servomechanisms or servos may be used in connection with an aircraft. For example, in fly by wire (FBW) systems an aircraft may use servos to actuate the aircraft's control surfaces.
In conventional aircraft platforms, the servos are “dumb” in the sense that they do not include processing capabilities. Control and coordination for the servos is provided via one or more highly-customized flight control computers (FCCs). The use of such FCCs tends to be expensive in terms of development and validation/certification. Furthermore, the communication or linkage between an FCC and the servos tends to be point-to-point via dedicated channels. Accordingly, the implementation tends to be “wire-intensive,” which leads to an increase in terms of weight and complexity and reduced reliability and safety.